Analyst: Sonos is ‘natural acquisition target’ for Apple

Premium music speaker maker Sonos could be the next consumer electronics stock in play after the acquisition of Fitbit by Alphabet unit Google, a Wall Street analyst said Wednesday. Sonos stock jumped after the analyst suggested Apple would be a logical suitor.

In a note to clients, D.A. Davidson analyst Tom Forte said Apple is the most likely buyer of Sonos, but Amazon might be interested as well. Sonos also could go private if its shares continue to underperform, Forte said.

But Apple might have trouble getting regulatory approval to buy Sonos. The same is true for Google’s planned purchase of Fitbit.

I depends on how much Apple has to pay to acquire it. There was such whining from critics when Apple paid $3B for Beats and I thought it wasn’t all that much to pay. I don’t know if Apple has made back that money, so I don’t know if it was worth it or not in terms of recurring revenue. I thought it might be useful for the tech and IP that Beats had.

I don’t mind Apple acquiring Sonos to grab a decent-sized customer base and more audio tech as long as Apple doesn’t end up overpaying for the company. However, Apple knows what it needs and I don’t, so it’s not for me to say what Apple has to do to compete at a high level against the likes of Amazon or Google in the smart speaker business. Now that Apple has a home audio and video streaming business, they may need high-end speaker systems and soundbars for customers who will be playing back high-quality content.

I’m sure there will be a lot of critics who will be against Apple acquiring Sonos, but there will always be those who say whatever company Apple acquires is a waste of money. As long as the acquisition increases the overall value of Apple, I’m all for it.